The Colorado River is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately 1,450 mi (2,333 km) long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The natural course of the river flows into the Gulf of California, but the heavy use of the river as an irrigation source for Imperial Valley has desiccated the lower course of the river in Mexico such that it no longer reaches the sea.

There are other rivers with the name Colorado River, but this one is the longest and the largest by volume. The Colorado River drains 242,900 sq mi (629,000 sq km). Total flows of the river range from 20,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) in droughts to 1,000,000 cfs in severe floods. With the construction of massive power dams on the lower course of the river, floods of over 70,000 cfs are rare. The mean flow of the total river before diversion is 42,600 cfs. At full flow more runoff volume exists in this river than any other in North America except the Mississippi and Columbia.

Leave a Reply

Name

Mail (will not be published)

Website

[antispam protection] Please type here first word from the second line of the page title image. The word begins with "Acc"

The World According To Google - satellite pictures of the most interesting places on the World, satellite maps running on WordPressThis site is not affiliated with Google. This is hobby database of google satellite places locations all over the World
RSS: Entries & Comments.